Tag Archives: alternate reality game

Repost: CORRECTIONS TO BRIAN DUNNING’S SKEPTOID PODCAST ABOUT ONG’S HAT

A rebuttal on the site josephmatheny.com regarding a recent podcast and article that ran on Skeptoid, by Brian Dunning.

An excerpt:

There’s a podcast/website called The Skeptoid that is run by one Brian Dunning. The website seems to consist of a collection of transcriptions of the Skeptoid podcast, links to the podcast and a personal vita for Mr. Dunning. I learned that recently, Brian Dunningran an episode of the Skeptoid titled: Ong’s Hat, which was, predictably about the Ong’s Hat literary game.

Brian Dunning claims that his podcast, “Skeptoid: Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena is an award-winning weekly science podcast. Since 2006, Skeptoid has been revealing the true science behind popular misinformation and urban legends.” His words.

While I haven’t sampled any of the other offerings on that Skeptoid website, I did read the text transcription of Mr. Dunning’s “investigation” into the Ong’s Hat urban legend and found it dismissive and misinformed in the following areas.

Link to full article: https://josephmatheny.com/2019/03/18/corrections-to-brian-dunnings-skeptoid-podcast-about-ongs-hat/

The tl;dr version

https://jmatheny.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/46256399.mp3?_=1

 

A collection of Ong’s Hat reviews, interviews and theories.

An entire site full of interviews can be found at josephmatheny.com here’s a selection of the latest:

Playlist of YouTube videos about Ong’s Hat

Original Boing-Boing Article: Advances in Skin Science

Part of the “original 4” pieces of the Ong’s Hat storyline. It appeared in print as Advances in Skin Science, later to be released on the Internet as ADVANCES IN SKIN SCIENCE: QUANTUM TANTRA AN INTERVIEW WITH NICK HERBERT BY JOSEPH MATHENY Boing-Boing issue 11